“I am from Borneo, and I seek a man who is called Truji, an Englishman. No, _mynheer_, I wish to see his house, for he is a great man in my country. When I have seen his house I will go back to Borneo.” Mike was watching him as he talked. It was a particularly good-looking face, except for the long and ugly scar that ran from his forehead to the point of his jaw. A new servant for Gregory Penne, thought the detective, and gave him directions. Standing by the policeman’s side, he watched the queer figure with its bundles till it disappeared. “Queer language, that, sir,” said the officer. “It was Dutch to me.” “And to me,” chuckled Mike, and continued his way to the hotel. CHAPTER XVII MR. FOSS MAKES A SUGGESTION IMMERSED in her beloved script, Adele Leamington sat on her bed, a box of _marron glacé_ by her side, her knees tucked up, and a prodigious frown on her forehead. Try as hard as she would, she found it impossible to concentrate upon the intricate directions with which Foss invariably tortured the pages of his scenarios. Ordinarily she could have mastered this handicap, but, for some reason or other, individual thoughts which belonged wholly to her and had no association with her art came flowing forth in such volume that the lines were meaningless and the page, for all the instruction it gave to her, might as well have been blank. What _was_ Michael Brixan? He was not her idea of a detective, and why was he staying in Chichester? Could it be . . . ? She flushed at the thought and was angry with herself. It was hardly likely that a man who was engaged in unravelling a terrible crime would linger for the sake of being near to her. Was the Head-Hunter, the murderer, living near Chichester? She dropped her manuscript to her knees at the appalling thought. The voice of her landlady aroused her. “Will you see Mr. Foss, miss?” She jumped up from the bed and opened the door. “Where is he?” “I’ve put him in the parlour,” said the woman, who had grown a little more respectful of late. Possibly the rise of the extra to stardom was generally known in that small town, which took an interest in the fortunes of its one ewe lamb of a production company. Lawley Foss was standing by the window, looking out, when she came into the room. “Good afternoon, Adele,” he said genially. (He had never called her by her Christian name before, even if he had known it.) “Good afternoon, Mr. Foss,” she said with a smile. “I’m sorry to hear that you have left us.” Foss lifted his shoulders in a gesture of indifference. “The scope was a little too limited for my kind of work,” he said.